Animal Rights Thugs Win in the Netherlands
Why would animal rights thugs act better when being threatening to hurt people wins battles? Like in the Netherlands recently, when a plan to build a science park was immediately abandoned when the thugs began to threaten direct action. From the story:
Threats by animal rights activists have led to a developer pulling out of plans to build a science park in the Limburg town of Venray. In a statement issued on Monday afternoon, developer Van der Looy said it would not go ahead with the project due to the "unacceptably threatening attitude" of certain groups.If this continues--and especially if it is effective--not only will animal using industries be under increasing assaults--but believers in other agendas will get the message that coercion works. And then, as a society, we will be in very big trouble.
On Christmas Eve the houses of several project managers were daubed with paint. "We decided immediately to stop," the company said on its website. The action has been claimed by the Animal Liberation Front (DBF) which said in a letter to Van der Looy that its next action would not be so "friendly".
Animal rights believers: You must forcefully reject these activities--even if it means defending industries with which you profoundly disagree. If preserving the rule of law isn't sufficient motivation, remember, if animal rights activists can attack animal industries, supporters of animal industries can attack animal rights activists.
Labels: Animal RIgths Thuggery
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 10:52 AM
18 Comments
18 Comments:
"Animal rights believers: You must forcefully reject these activities--even if it means defending industries with which you profoundly disagree."
Uh, no it doesn't.
I don't have to defend immoral activities in order to reject other immoral activities. Don't be ridiculous.
Do you have to support apartheid in order to reject violence opposing apartheid? Do you have to support slavery in order to reject illegal anti-slavery activities?
NO.
Put on your critical thinking cap, please. And stop spreading fear and lies.
It's not fear and lies that the most radical among you are growing increasingly violent and threatening. That is a fact.
You don't have to defend moral activities, but you do have to defend the rule of law and the proper approach to protesting what are now legal, even if immoral from your perspective, activities. It means that you have to protect these industries against violence by decrying it unequivocally and opposing lawlessness and violence against people in these industries. It is really urgent that you persuade the more radical elements to remain within the law. If you don't, it seems to me that you lose any moral authority as a "peaceable" movement.
Nothing is more thuggish than than using and abusing those who are weaker and more vulnerable than you. Humans that confine animals and inflict suffering on them for the purpose of pleasure, (which includes eating them) amusement or through convenience are the real thugs. All animals have a right to live their lives just like you do.Unfortunatley the law does not protect animals from having their lives stolen by arrogant thugs.
I agree that using violence is wrong and only furthers and endless cycle of more violence. However, the anti-animal rights people create new laws like AETA to protect their profits and to keep the public from ever knowing what goes on to animals behind closed doors. That is thuggish and cowardice.
So explain to me how spray painting is violent?
It's funny to me how J. Wesley will defend pharmaceutical companies who kill thousands of people with their vivisection approved drugs, but decry non-violent animal activists as terrorists?
Take a look for yourself
http://www.shac.net/SCIENCE/customer_drugs.html
These companies are getting away with mass murder in the name of profit, while tools such as J. Wesley and the Center For Consumer Freedom continue to defend and enable their actions. Now tell me who the real terrorists are?
Long live the ALF/ELF and all those who risk their lives for Earth, Animal, and Human liberation!
It goes way beyond spray painting, and you know it. I have talked to the terrorized victims whose children were threatened with murder. But let me come to your home and spray paint your walls with pro research epithets and see how you like it. And I will wear a ski mask so I won't get caught and then claim the mantle of a civil rights activist and civil disobedience.
I wish I could say I was surprised by these responses, but I am not. They are very illustrative and demonstrate the veracity of my critiques of the animal rights movement.
Apartheid? Arrogant thugs? Mass murder? Are we reliving the sixties? I'm not feeling much love here......sheeze.
Mort
Mort: You have to understand that animal liberationists do not distinguish between people and animals. Hence, what is done to a cow, say is the same as if it were done to a human being. Hence, cattle ranching is slavery and research on rats to cure cancer is Mengele in Auschwitz to them.
I understand completely Wesley. Just feeling a little sarcastic today. I know exactly how zealotry inflames those that state the desire of "liberation" for their cause (whatever it may be) yet would deny the liberty of any and all that may disagree. It is they that wear the jack boot.
Mort
"I know exactly how zealotry inflames those that state the desire of 'liberation' for their cause (whatever it may be) yet would deny the liberty of any and all that may disagree."
This isn't just a matter of a "clash of ideas" or freedom of choice. This goes way deeper then a simple disagreement, vivisection is literally killing thousands sentient animals and humans. I say the real zealots are opportunists like J. Wesley who make a living defending animal abuse.
As far as the ALF using or threatening violence, I call bullshit. Unlike the pharmaceutical companies that J. Wesley so vigorously defends, no humans have ever been injured or killed by the ALF.
Example of death and injury associated with vivisection:
Drug giant GSK covered up data from trials of its anti-depressant Seroxat which showed increased risk of suicidality among child patients and failed to demonstrate effectiveness, instead promoting the drug as ‘safe and effective'
AstraZeneca manufacture Crestor. Reports in the summer of 2005 linked Crestor with double the rate of side effect rates of comparable drugs, and six times the rate of some similar treatments. Some patients died.
Pfizer were back in the news again. Bextra (a painkiller) narrowly escaped being withdrawn in America early in 2005, then later was withdrawn in April following more discoveries. Patients were developing a rare but life threatening skin diseases.
In early 2006 their painkiller Celebrex was linked to a more than doubled increase in heart attack risks.
Pfizer were also linked to eleven deaths in a clinical trial for an Alzheimer’s treatment in March 2006. Among patients taking a placebo, the death rate was zero. Pfizer were only marketing the drug: it was manufactured by Esai.
And in May 2005, their most famous drug Viagra hit the news again, this time linked to blindness. Reports of temporary and permanent blindness have been filed by patients who took the drug, which alters blood supply to the retina.
Merck generated much of its income from Vioxx (painkiller) before it was found to be linked to an increased heart attack risk, and summer 2005 saw the first court trials find against the drug company. The first trial awarded a widow $253 million, and left others wondering whether it was tested at HLS animals by another of HLS’s customers.
Around the same time it emerged that animal data had indicated Vioxx protected the heart, and indicated it could be an effective heart drug, while human data suggested it was a heart risk. Incredibly it seems the animal studies were given more credence than the clinical reports. As the trials progressed, an expert testified that a single dose could cause a potentially lethal heart attack.
Merck hit the headlines when ‘flu drug Tamiflu was linked to abnormal behaviour, hallucinations, and reports of two suicides – all among children. The European regulator requested a report on all psychiatric effects.[32] Although many of the events were in Japan, the American regulators also said they would “examine reports of up to 12 deaths and 75 cases of children who suffered health problems after using Tamiflu”
123: You are free to comment here but please do not use cuss words.
Also, it is Wesley J., not J. Wesley.
Finally, if you don't think ALF is violent, you aren't paying attention.
123: You have made my point. Where sentience begins is where we differ. In your perspective there seems to be only your truth...."you're with us or you're with the terrerists" choice comes to mind.
That companies have produced products of dubious value, and also those that are dangerous, is not relevant to the act of destroying property and/or threatening the lives of those to which one is opposed. There are avenues open, through the legal process, to change the mandates placed upon those companies in their testing procedures.
I am not advocating the needless slaughter of rabbits, trees or carrots. I am opposed to sabatoge, vandalism and mayhem perpitrated for some ideal.
Mort
As I sit typing this, my four-legged baby (of the feline variety) is flopped out on the back of my desk chair and occasionally attacking the back of my head 'cause my hair is in a tail. She is loved, adored, played with, and thinks she is a goddess. She and her sister are quite the pair, and they're both spoiled 'cause I love them.
They're also both hunters, as I've watched them kill and eat lizards, insects, and frogs that come into the house. Why is it moral for them to kill and eat other animals - which they *enjoy* doing - and not moral for me to kill and eat animals that I hunt? Or are my babies being naughty by eating small, helpless lizards?
For the record, I try to rescue any small animal that comes into the house before my girls have a chance to spy it out, because they *will* pounce quickly and eat the thing if I don't act fast. They love the hunt - if I take their prey away they freak out and get mad and have turned their backs on me (I'm not kidding - Callie sometimes won't eat if she is mad enough, and Ginger has been known to sit at the front door and yowl when she sees me put her dinner outside so it can live free).
If you are going to equate us to animals and suggest there's no difference between us and the other beasts, then it should be 100% okay for us, like gorillas, chimps, lemurs, and cats and dogs, to hunt and kill our own dinner.
And if you're gonna complain about the fact that, unlike animals, we actually cage up our dinner before eating it, I'd like to remind you that spiders will catch flies and other small insects, wrap them up, and leave them (alive) hanging on their webs until they're ready to eat 'em. Ants farm aphids for their body secretions - they drag the aphids around and get them to good eating areas, then selfishly take the aphids' secretions for their own food like we take milk from cows. And unlike animals that will sit and crush the throats of their prey (think lions and cougars), humans are required by law (or by Law if you're into kosher eating, as I am) to kill an animal in the quickest, most painless way possible. If you look at Kosher law, an animal must be cut across the neck in such a way that it passes out before it dies, so it doesn't die in any pain at all. Some animals have to be shocked to knock them out before they're killed so they don't feel anything. I've watched my girls rip the limbs off of gekos before, and enjoy the thrill of the hunt. I couldn't stomach that. I'd rather buy good Kosher beef that I know was raised properly, well-fed, and cared for until death, and that its death was swift and painless.
My baby is now sound asleep on the back of my chair. Even though she's a viscious killer of lizards, I love her. She and I have a bond because I believe in human stewardship - that all animals belong to God, not to us, and that while we are allowed to use His animals as He permits us, we must *never* hurt them needlessly.
P.S. - 123, check some of the perscription drugs you probably have had to take in the past. 99% of them were created through animal testing.
"Finally, if you don't think ALF is violent, you aren't paying attention."
Ok Mr. Wesley J. Smith give me one example of the Animal Liberation Front injuring or killing humans. Please just give me one example of actual physical harm. It's part of the ALF credo to take all necessary precautions to insure no humans or animals are injured.
"That companies have produced products of dubious value, and also those that are dangerous, is not relevant to the act of destroying property and/or threatening the lives of those to which one is opposed"
I feel it is perfectly relevant to bring up examples of vivisection being harmful to humans. It's not just an isolated incident or a fluke. Thousands of drugs are recalled every year, because of there adverse health effects in humans, even though animal models showed that these drugs were safe. Some companies such as GlaxoSmithKline even go as far as cover up results from clinical studies in order to get their drugs passed by the FDA. This was the case with the anti-depressant Seroxat and dozens of teenagers had to die before it was finally recalled. I'm just trying to point out who is responsible for the real violence here.
As far sabotage as being used as a legitimate tactic for social change. I for one view life to be more important then property. If all legal and traditional avenues of recourse have been exhausted then I believe property destruction is justifies in order prevent further harm to human and animal life.
Nobody has been killed yet, which I have stated here. But bombs have been left under cars, fires have been started, bombs have been exploded at companies, children have been threatened with murder, video tapes of families sent to people working in animal industries with the threat of violence, property has been destroyed in the tune of millions of dollars. The rule of law has been thwarted.
How would you like it if that were done to you? If ALF can do it to animal industry workers, animal industries can hunt you down and do it to you. And then we have anarchy.
"Nobody has been killed yet"
Ok I'm glad we cleared that up. The ALF has never injured or murdered anyone. Don't you think it's a little misleading when you refer to the ALF as violent terrorists? But I guess hysteria sells more books, right Mr. Wesley J. Smith?
Arson is violence. Bombing is violence. And someday, somebody will be killed. Threatening to kill one's children is terrorism.
philip SAID: Nothing is more thuggish than than using and abusing those who are weaker and more vulnerable than you. Humans that confine animals and inflict suffering on them for the purpose of pleasure, (which includes eating them) amusement or through convenience are the real thugs. All animals have a right to live their lives just like you do.Unfortunatley the law does not protect animals from having their lives stolen by arrogant thugs.
OK, Philip and other Animal Rights Enthusiasts, from your comments, it is apparent to me that you are also against abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and the use of aborted fetal tissues. What about the Born Alive Infants Act?
Oh, I'm sure you'll bring up the ridiculous assertion that it is only "sentient" life that matters. While the sentience of the human fetus is not widely agreed upon, neither is the sentience of animals. Why wouldn't we give the same "benefit of the doubt" to HUMAN BEINGS that you want us to give to animals?
If there is a hypocrite in this argument, it is the Animal Rights Enthusiast. I, personally, am pro-life CONSISTENTLY; I am against abortion. I am against euthanasia. I am against the death penalty. I am against pre-emptive war. I am against animal cruelty. I eat animal flesh because I believe that it is the natural order of things. However, I insist on eating animal produts from animals that are treated humanely and allowed to live as natural of a life as possible (free range) and killed in the most pain-free way possible.
It always amazes me how, on one hand, Animal Rights Enthusiasts insist that people are no different or better than animals, yet they then insist that we not kill animals or eat their flesh because we're supposed to be "better" and more "sensitive" than the rest of the animal world. News Flash: the animal world is a cold, cruel, and unforgiving place; Darwinian at its core. The strongest survive and the weak are consumed.
Well, which is it? Are we human beings "special" or are we "unremarkable"? Either way you answer, the ridiculous premise of your cause is compromised. So, I don't expect an aswer; it would be to hard for you to defend.
123 said: As far sabotage as being used as a legitimate tactic for social change. I for one view life to be more important then property. If all legal and traditional avenues of recourse have been exhausted then I believe property destruction is justifies in order prevent further harm to human and animal life.
So, you must approve of abortion clinic sabotage and vandalism, as well. My money is on "you don't".
Wesley J. Smith said: Arson is violence. Bombing is violence. And someday, somebody will be killed. Threatening to kill one's children is terrorism.
Well here we go again with the false accusations. When has the Animal Liberation Front threatened to kill children? I can give you plenty of examples of pharmaceutical companies killing children.
It amazes me that people spend so much time bickering over whether or not the ALF/ELF is ethical. Meanwhile our planet is being destroyed at an ever growing rate. Entire cultures and eco-systems are being raped by the cattle industry, our oceans are being depleted by the commercial fishing industry, and pharmaceutical companies are murdering thousands through the fraud of vivisection. Whether not you agree with the animal rights movement or whether or not you think vandalism is an appropriate tactic, just remember nothing that the ALF does will ever compare to the damage being done by multi-national corporations to our planet.
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